My grandmother decided to get me an Amazon gift card instead of just getting the D2 I had originally asked for, which happened to be the week before the D2+ was announced. So, I thought my decision was made for me but now I find myself getting to decide and I could really use some advice - I'm torn between the two. I'm actually leaning towards the D2 because it seems to be a better value right now and is well supported. But I'm curious. Is there any info yet as to whether Cowon will stop firmware upgrades on the D2 now that the D2+ has been released? With the changes in the D2+ being rather minimal, it seems the main reason to consider it would be "future-proof-ness". What do you think? Am I missing something? I'm also wondering your opinions on purchasing a refurbished D2 from Jetmall on Amazon. Is the warranty the same? Would you worry about it? Several people have mentioned that the D2 has some "metallic" parts vs the all plastic D2+. Is the D2 really part metal or is it simply silver metallic colored plastic? Just kind of trying to get down to the nitty-gritty differences so I can make a decision and order it!

Thanks so much in advance.

All the best,
Rachel
PS I posted a more generic question about this sometime ago. I thought this should be its own thread but if I'm wrong, please feel free to merge them.

Right now the only differences are the color and the firmware. Although, looking at the "D2 Firmware" part of this forum, you can put the D2+ firmware on the D2, essentially making it a D2+. But ya never know. Cowon might find a way to make future firmware updates old-D2 proof somehow if we're abusing our technology.

It's hard to say.. how easily can you part with the ~$30 difference?

And IMO, refurbs are better deals than new. For whatever reason, the product is brought back to the warehouse, and it is inspected inside and out to make sure it works just like new, and the warranty is slapped back on. The new, regular products don't get such thorough inspection.

i would buy either D2 really. the Themes and Flash Skins for the D2 can work on the D2+ but the Flash Skins lack some performance and some Skins that use a Config.txt File for settings don't work but they do work with Regular D2 Firmware. really though if it were me i'd get a D2+. cause of the BBE+ and the new colors/look you can't bypass it.

You guys can claim another convert thanx to these forums ... I had passed over Cowon time and time again without considering any of their players. And now I am almost decided on a D2 (pondered about the O2 for a couple of hours, but I think I'd rather the compact size of the D2).

Anyway I am in kind of the same spot as varaonaid. I missed the Newegg $30 off the D2+ by one hour ... I decided I wanted a D2 last night and started searching for prices only to find I just missed the sale RRRRrrrr. So I am checking for prices, and considering both D2 and D2+ (going for the 16GB). I don't really mind the looks of either, both look classy and not overdone, and the D2+ firmware can be installed on the D2, so that's not really a factor either.

I've seen, on these forums, some mention plastic vs metal on the D2+ vs D2. Is that true, I thought both were plastic. Am I wrong?

Here are the best prices I found, what would you suggest considering that I find both look nice:
D2+ for $175 at jetaudio thru amazon.
D2, case, & screen covers for $165 at jetmall.
I want the case anyway, I think alone it costs $20. So is it worth $35 to go for D2+?

By the way, if I get Cowon devices thru eBay, do their warranties still apply, or am I risking it. It's not much cheaper so if there is a risk I'd rather spend a bit more and be safe.

If you purchase either one new through Jetmall, you can add a one or two-year extended warranty. Normally I ignore extended warranties, but it's Cowon doing the servicing and not the typical 3rd party outfit.
Also note that you have to buy a new unit to be able to add an extended warranty; not a refurbished unit. I added a 2yr extended warranty onto my D2+ for $40 (who knows how long those touchscreens will last).

It depends on whether you make the subjective call that the D2+ looks better or worse than the Vintage D2. Considering you're going to own this for a long time I don't think the extra 30 quid should be a big factor.

Personally if I was in your shoes I'd get the D2+ because I think the redesigned screen frame is an aesthetic improvement, and the colour schemes are a lot cooler.

In terms of capabilities - I very much doubt that if you get a Vintage D2 you won't be running the D2+ firmware on it anyway as pretty much everyone in the D2 community are now, so the way it works will be identical.

So I got a D2+ and before getting it thought, "man I kinda wish I had sprung for the D2 and the metallic look." After receiving the D2+, though, I think it looks better in person. Even though it's plastic, it has a metallic feel to it.

Just my two thoughts. True, I think I would have liked the silver/metallic look better, but it's a kinda minor point. The D2+ looks fine and doesn't feel cheap.

I think the D2 ships with an ac adapter/charger and the D2+ doesn't. You can charge either one from USB, but the AC charger is faster and you can listen to music while the player is charging. When you charge by USB, the player goes into computer/file transfer mode and you can't play music on it until you unplug the USB.

As an update over here, I've been struggling with my new D2+ --- the database keeps on corrupting and the player is rebooting. Upgraded firmware, inspected ID3 tags, etc. I cannot recommend it unless you plan to spend significant time making sure your tags are "just right" for it to work on there. I assume the D2 is similar. In retrospect if I knew I would have this issues I would seriously have considered not getting it. You can go to to the iaudiophile.net forums and see all the problems people have... I assume the D2 is the same.

Thanks for all the replies! Still trying to decide though I must admit to leaning strongly towards the D2. Your opinions have been really helpful.

One further thing, though I may need to post it in a separate thread...

How difficult is the D2 to actually use. I mean not just the touch screen issues, etc but I mean to put music on it, swap music out on it, put videos on it, etc? I currently run Linux but am getting to a point in my life where I don't want to have to spend hours tweaking everything. I want stuff to work without tons of effort. I've seen in a review or two that the D2 is difficult on this issue. What are your thoughts in this regard? I mean, I've even thought of looking at ipods and Vista to attempt to find more simplicity. *ducks to avoid flying objects thrown*

Thanks again!

edit: My connection dropped out and I missed reading your last post, grantedman, before I posted this. I really appreciated hearing your experience but I'm sorry for your problems. Any other thoughts would be really appreciated. I'm a little scared now...

The touchscreen takes some time to get used to, but once you figure out how to add stuff to your playlists, etc., it's pretty nice. One big gripe is that it doesn't have buttons for fast forward or rewind. So if you want to skip a song and it's in your pocket, you have to reach in, tap once to activate the screen, tap again to bring up the controls, then fast forward.

That being said, I find it strange how some of the actions on the D2/D2+ require a double-tap. It's pretty annoying. Single-tap would have been fine.

Cowon D2/D2+ requires no software to sync. So I bet it'd work with Linux.

On one of my XviD videos, it had a decoding error where it introduced some transient artifacts.

It says it comes with a flash player, which would be insanely awesome, but the processor isn't great (so stuff runs slow) and sometimes it won't load flash (gives a "some flash error occurred" message).

Btw, it doesn't have gapless playback, so if you have a song spread out over several tracks, it'll insert a small gap of silence as it switches around. It's really frustrating for those songs.

P.S. I finished using MP3Tag to re-tag all my mp3s, and it seems to have fixed the mp3 problems I've been running across.

However, the video playback/browser has started acting up. It labels one of my videos with the same filename as another (so it's a corrupt database issue). I don't even know how it can have a corrupt database issue when my videos don't even have embedded tags or strange file names. Also, I was getting sound/video sync problems, but they switched to a different video converter. According to dfkt, they have a bad implementation for their video decoder: http://iaudiophile.net/forums/showthread.php?t=13864

Wow, grantedman, it's starting to sound like a nightmare. Sorry to hear about your problems. I have to admit to spending some time tonight looking at other players. I may still end up going with the d2 but I just don't want it to become a source of agro.

No prob. I wish I had investigated it more (and looked into all the problems associated with the Cowon D2) before buying.

Audio seems to be working ever since I re-tagged everything with Mp3tag. Frustrating to say the least (getting to this point, and needing to remember to re-run that program whenever I load up mp3s).

From what I can tell, there are still audio/video sync issues, but they're significantly better (right now I'm using d2video). But there are still some movies where things don't seem quite synced --- for example, you'll see a lightning bolt and then ~0.2 seconds later hear the lightning, and I'm pretty sure in the original they made the two simultaneous for dramatic effect. I need to check if it's the conversion software or the hardware player... d2video definitely chokes on .mov files and can't convert them properly.

As a followup, I've just about had it trying to convert video on the Cowon D2+. Iriviter screws it up, D2Video screws it up, and when I tried to download iLove (recommended on the iaudiophile forums) it had a virus on it. I'm trying out the JetAudio Video converter tool that came on the CD with the player, and very disappointed --- it puts the Cowon logo at the beginning of your videos (seriously, wtf??), and I still saw it screw up on decoding one scene (introducing a temporary *serious* artifact that was not present in the original, nor should be introduced by XviD --- this seems like a firmware problem rather than the encoder, though). Luckily these decoder artifacts are rare, but when they happen they are frustrating. I really wish I either stuck with the Sansa Fuze or Zune.

I'm having very good luck with DVD43 for decoding and handbrake for encoding, then using the Jetaudio video converter. It's time consuming, but I've not found anything faster. All freeware, too. To me the extra time is worth it to have video that functions properly. The Cowon that comes up on the video only comes up at the beginning. How can that be annoying?

I think your statement inferring that the advice here is not good is overly broad and negative. I'm a real noob at this stuff and I've gotten great advice thusfar.

Hope you can find solutions to your problems. I personally think this is a great place and I'm really enjoying my new D2+.

You just got to find the right version of ilove. I had no problems with getting videos onto my D2 and I had all the initial database problems you encountered. They were rectified by a format and reinstallation of a v2.xx based firmware. It's been working problem free ever since.

Still can't get it to sync properly, even with the Cowen JetAudio Video Converter tool. There's about a 0.2 second delay --- it is small but definitely noticeable.

In case anyone is wondering my setup, every encoder has barfed on one of the following: a MPEG2 video, a quicktime MOV file, and/or a mkv file (h.264). I've done plenty of video ripping/encoding in the past... never had the headaches before getting video to work on a device like this.